This month, we’ve been tackling intarsia in the round … and the results have been pretty spectacular! It’s always great to see the amount of learning that happens in the monthly knitalongs, but this month in particular, it’s been really inspiring to see knitters take on a technique that was new to virtually almost everyone!

his month’s Boost Your Knitting designer is the supremely talented Julia Farwell-Clay, whose cleverly cute Heartgyle Socks have knitters around the world not only working intarsia, but doing it in the round! She loves a good sweater, but also has designed beautiful accessories — she’s partial to eye-catching designs and interesting techniques! She was kind enough to sit down and answer some questions about her design process and the role that new techniques play in it — and she’s got some good advice for us too!

I’ve been happily knitting away on my Heartgyle Socks, looking forward to getting to the intarsia action! If you’re casting around looking for other projects that use this technique, you might struggle initially – like dip stitches and tuck stitches, “intarsia in the round” isn’t a separate pattern characteristic field on Ravelry. So here’s a small roundup of more patterns from Julia Farwell-Clay that use this technique!

I’m a big fan of stranded colourwork knitting – and I know many of our customers are aficionados too! But there are times when you want a single bold colour motif that’s non-repeating, no stranding required. It’s in these situations that we turn to another type of colourwork knitting: intarsia. Working the technique in the round poses special challenges. I’ll show you how to tackle them in today’s tutorial.

After a few months of fabulous patterns that play with texture, it’s time for some fun with colour! I am so pleased to introduce you to this month’s pattern, the shockingly cute Heartgyle Socks by Julia Farwell-Clay, which will have you working intarsia in the round, July’s technique, in no time!

Have I mentioned recently how much I absolutely love enabling knitters to learn new techniques? That feeling of breaking it down into achievable chunks, leading people through the process, and watching them achieve more than they thought possible is almost as intoxicating as the thrill of learning something new. I can’t wait to help you to Boost Your Knitting!